There is never a stupid question....so they say.....

New Member

Hey folks. My family has been tent campers for several years and recently purchased a 1993 Jayco Pop-up. We are excited to try it out this weekend and have what will probably seem like a real stupid question......

Our little 14-year-old camper has an 'ice chest' not a refrigerator. Inside the ice chest is a shelf with what appears to be a drain. How are we to use this? Do we put the ice on the shelf and everything else in the bottom - keep it closed - and pray? Seriously, how does it keep things cold like that. When we use a cooler, things go into the ice - sorry for my newbie questions....hopefully someone will have pity

Senior Member

The icebox such as you have is a very workable thing. As a tent camper, you must have used ice chests to keep things cold? That is exactly what you have in your pop-up, but better designed. The way that it works is that since cold air is heavy it drops to the bottom. As the ice melts, it absorbs the heat from the air in the ice-box and that cooled air drops down to the bottom to keep things cool. The drain is to allow the melted ice to drain from the tray and exit, rather than to get everything inside wet.

The pop-up is a great way to transition from a tent to the RV way. We has some great years with ours and our grown boys consider the trips that we made as a family in it to have been some of the best things that they remember from growing up.